White/Light Blue screen on Boot only get OS by using Shift Key

'White/Light Blue screen on Boot can only get into OS by using Shift Key on boot up (Safe start)'

'''• Serial Number:

• Type: iMac "Core 2 Duo" 2.16 24-Inch (T7400)

• Intro.: September 6, 2006

• Disc.: August 7, 2007

• Model: A1200 (EMC 2111)

• Family: Late 2006 - 24"

• ID: iMac6,1

• RAM: 3 GB

• VRAM: 128 MB

• Storage: 250 GB (7200 RPM)

• Optical: 8X DL "SuperDrive"'''

Question:

Has anyone else had this problem, cursor goes to top left of screen and is moveable anywhere on the screen it just sits there not booting.

However if I hold down Shift key on boot up it boots into safe start and I can use it as normal with no problem except there is no drivers loaded, as you would expect in Safe start.

WHAT I HAVE TRIED.

Booting off of DVD will load but goes to the same as normal boot screen with cursor up at the left moveable about but no start up screen as above.

All the other things work Opt key, D key, V key, PRAM SMC

If I connect in target mode to my other IMac same model as this one I can boot this computer on the other one and it displays no problem, if I do it the other way round it just hangs as in my question above.

I have checked the hard drive by changing it from one to the other computer and they both work ok.

So now I am looking for any answers to my problem, any of you people got any ideas of what is going wrong, prior to this happening all was working fine, I have checked the panic logs but cannot see any problems there, by the way the OS X is 10.6.8

I reformatted the hard drive as you suggested, then went to install the OS X only then I realized that I could not install my OS X as I could not see it on the booted screen, so I had to put my drive into my other computer to install the OS X on.

Anyway that I done it worked on my other computer OK, but when putting it back into its own computer I had the same problem as I had to start with.

That is no Video on Boot Up only the cursor going to the top left of screen (moveable), but if I hold SHIFT DOWN WELL BOOTING IT INTO SAFE START it works perfectly OK. Of course with no drivers as it is in safe start.

But it WILL NOT START UNDER NORMAL BOOT MODE.

Thanks for the ideas but it did not help me do you or anyone have any other thoughts on what could be causing this problem.

Units complete with remote K/B, mice came with two grey DVDs mac OS version 10.5.6 P/N 2z691-6436-A other DVD with apps on

How I installed the OS

I could not see the video on boot up from the DVD only the cursor in the top left hand corner of the screen I took the H/D out and put it into my other mac same model and installed the OS that way and booted up ok in that mac when I returning it into the original mac it would not boot video on boot up.

1 Answer

It seems to be a software issue since you can boot in Safe Mode. Possibly a virus. I would back up my user folder by dragging and dropping onto an external. Then doing a clean install. I personally would reformat the drive, use the write zeros option to map out any bad blocks that may have developed on a 10 year old hard drive, then reinstall my system and run updates.

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